Page 42 of The Alibi Club

She put her hands on her hips as she walked and let out a sigh. “I would ask a few more hypotheticals. For starters, how big is this hypothetical favor? Could this hypothetical favor land the hypothetical new parolee back behind bars? What is the hypothetical consequence if said favor is not repaid? And last, does this hypothetical person’s name rhyme with Schmelvyn Schmott?”

Dez had already worked it out. Melvyn Ott had left several vaguely threatening messages for Cliff warning him he owed him and if he did not do this favor for him, then he would have to collect in other ways, namely taking several of Cliff’s protruding body parts and feeding them to junkyard dogs.

“Hypothetically yes,” Cliff answered glumly.

Dez stopped in the middle of The Strand and faced Cliff. She took a good long look at him. “I heard about you before I met you, Weston. A masterful, methodical planner, brilliant, some even said. Charming, smart, and a gentleman with the manners and taste to match, which made you a chameleon among the ranks of the upper class. You have no appetite for violence unless a woman is in danger. From your report, it seems you are the kind of man who probably never belonged in the heist game at all, let alone a stint in the joint. But you got yourself mixed up with the wrong crew, maybe you were forced to rush a job and that’s why you got caught. Along with one other member of the crew named Mel Ott.”

Cliff didn’t say a word. He wasn’t sure how to contribute to the narrative. So, he simply returned her gaze.

Dez looked at her shoes, thinking. “Mel Ott is a career criminal, Cliff. He’s violent, unhinged, and messy. I don’t even know how you got mixed up with him. He isn’t your typical associate. If he’s getting out soon, he’s going to come calling.”

It was Cliff’s turn to stare out at the ocean.

Dez sighed. “Sounds like you’ve got a choice. Either do the bidding of a psycho and risk your freedom—and this time you’ll go down for a long time—or you find a way to send him back to prison for good once he’s out. Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

Cliff pondered this for a moment. “Of course.”

“Come on, we have two more miles to burn,” Dez said as she nudged him gently on the shoulder. “Tahiti looms.”

The run became a little easier after that. As if he’d set down a massive pile of bricks right there on The Strand by telling Parole Officer Dez Wheeler the truth. Hypothetically.

Once the run was over, as Dez was headed back to her car, Cliff looked down at his phone. He had two missed calls from Corcoran State Prison. Mel Ott was not going away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Unwelcome News

JAMIE

It didn’t come as a complete surprise to Jamie that she was fired that morning, right after pouring her coffee.

Never bodes well when a prospective new client snarls at you within the first five minutes. Or that the cute guy she just met scared the hell out of him. Usually, Jamie could find a way around the initial psychosis of the moment with a new client that usually began with defiance against the forces that brought Jamie in. But Duncan Reeves was beyond the pale. A man so convinced his success was solely his own that he simply could not accept he had flaws, or a blind spot, or even so much as a misunderstanding of the situation.

Whatever threat Cliff had levied only lasted so long.

So, when she got on an unannounced Zoom call with her boss and the glowering HR department head was also present, she knew she was finished. She signed a nondisclosure agreement, packed up her computer to send back, took her three weeks’ of severance pay, and logged off.

Getting canned should have made Jamie feel bad about herself. She could not abide the proper cues of corporate America that relentlessly told her she didn’t work hard enough, she wasn’t worthy of their time sheet approval or 401(k) plan, and no matter how much she gave to the job, it only gave her money and nothing more. No sense of purpose. Somehow, this latest event had crossed the constantly moving line of the corporate overlords.

Strangely, her firing was having the opposite effect. She felt relieved. Light. Peppy. Energized. She might be momentarily deranged, but she decided to embrace it. For all she knew, in a day’s time she might be camped out under the covers, depression kicking in and anxiety clocking in right around bedtime. However, in this moment of unexplained glee, she made a phone call.

She dialed the familiar number and listened to it ring exactly three times before the man on the other end picked up, as was his custom. “Crandall.”

A smile came to Jamie as she heard her old supervisor’s gruff greeting on the line. “Is Carl Grubbs pestering you with his conspiracy theories again?”

A short chuckle and then, “Damn, Jamie. How could you tell. How are you?”

“I’m good, Max. I’m good. How are the violent offenders these days?”

“Still offending, still chapping my ass, same old cesspool,” he groused. “What can I do for you?”

“I know this comes out of the blue, but I was just wondering if there were some temp jobs or freelance gigs I could fill over there. I miss doing real work.” Jamie struggled to say what she really felt. “I miss doing something important.”

There was a lengthy pause. Finally, Max spoke. “Listen, kid. I’d love to have you back. You were the best forensic psychologist we ever had. Helped us break some of our hardest cases, put some really dangerous men behind bars. But I gotta ask, Why now?”

Jamie fought off the visions of the night she was almost strangled within an inch of her life. “I figure it’s never going to be perfect timing, Max. Why not now?”

Another pause. Jamie sensed there was something Max wasn’t telling her.